Okay so I recently purchased "A Week In The Dungeon" and by purchased I mean downloaded off the internet and just wanted to make few comments about Dorians training style.
First off it doesn't look hard even though Dorian obviously feels it is. On one set of Barbell Curls Mark Dugdale who apparently was as sick as dog while the video was shot struggles to get 3 reps with Dorian helping the whole time they then strip the weight and get another 2 - 3 reps again with Dorians assistance, Mark finishes the set and mumbles "you made me look like a girl on that set" while Dorian responds "no I made you look like an American." I mean come on the weight was obviously too heavy for him but here's what I wanted to say while Dorians idea of HIT doesn't look all that hard it certainly makes a lot more sense than Mentzers dogmatic approach (to me at least).
Mentzers way of only doing one set of one exercise for each muscle group (and sometimes taking 2 weeks off) was a little extreme also always using machines and lifting for 4-5 seconds for the positive and 4-5 seconds for the negative might be unnecessary, if you can slow down the positive to 4-5 seconds the weight is probably too light, a heavier weight provided you don't jerk the weight or use momentum will keep you in the 2 (sometimes 3) second range when you lift it.
Anyway the way Dorian trains Mark is using a combination of free weights and machines for example chest is Incline Bench Press, Seated Machine Press, Dumbbell Flyes and Cable Crossovers.
So 4 exercises with one set each until failure. He doesn't have him slow down the positive but lift in a normal controlled manner but definitely gets him to slow the negative down to 3-4 seconds and hold the contraction for a second (no one bothers to count the seconds either).
Now this makes sense to me you don't need to slow the positive down to reach muscular failure, positive failure is easy but you do for the negative because you are much stronger during the negative portion.
I also read the following on Markus Reinhardt's site, (he's the guy who hired Mentzer to train him for 6 months and then starred in Mentzers HIT video)
"Markus adapted the Heavy Duty theories of Mentzer to fit his own needs as a competitive bodybuilder, much as Dorian Yates had done several years before. “I still do just one work set per exercise, but I’ll do three or four exercises for most bodyparts to provide stimulation from different angles,” he explains. After experimenting with more and less frequent training, this is the format Markus arrived at that works best for him."
